Before March 2017 I had a feeling that Alien: Covenant was going to be a solid film, people had been high on The Martian which I still have yet to see. The trailer made it look like a back to basics horror film in space, sure some of the cinematography was a little wonky but I could forgive that if we were to get a decent Alien film. Then March came and I noticed something, the advertising for Alien: Covenant started popping up everywhere, I would see busses with Alien on the side, before and during every Youtube video would be the trailer or a teaser for Alien. This was when I started to worry for the film, I knew that a film like this being advertised everywhere was a big warning sign and it turns out that I was correct. Alien: Covenant is not a good film in fact I would say its actually a poor one, don't get me wrong there are decent parts within the film but as a whole and as a prequel/sequel it just does not work within the franchise.
Before I go any further there will be spoilers throughout this review. Lets start with some positives although there are only a few. Michael Fassbender's performance as the android Walter was very good and much better than his performance as David in both this and Prometheus also the character of Walter was better, I like how emotionless Fassbender played it and it worked, its just a shame they hardly do anything with his character. Speaking of hardly doing anything with an interesting character, Billy Crudup plays the acting captain Christopher Oram which is a very interesting character for me but is unfulfilled and just seems wasted. Other than those two actors and their characters there is little else in this film that I thought was good.
I would say one of the biggest problems with Alien: Covenant is the characters, not the characters themselves but the amount of characters. Its a problem we see a lot now where a film has too many characters which in turn means that the more interesting and important characters can get lost in the shuffle. Covenant has too many "main" characters and only a few get decent development when I say a few I really mean David because the other characters don't really do anything you could argue that Danny McBride's Tennessee does develop during the film but its ever so slight. This is the part of the review where I start comparing it to the original Alien. The original Alien was far more effective with characters because the film developed them, even the smaller roles all had something that developed and over the first act of the film we knew a little about all the characters because was slower and had fewer characters. When Kane dies it has an impact because we know the character we have spent time with the character and we know everyone else's relationship with him. In Alien: Covenant the first person to birth an "alien" is a no name grunt, how are we supposed to feel any connection to the events when such a pointless character dies, and then five minutes later another "alien" is born from another no name grunt, all tension is lost and the scenes have no punch on an emotional level, sure they are filled with gore and blood but that is not a good substitute for build-up. If Covenant had half the characters it would be far more effective when someone dies and the film does have a good example of being effective when a main character dies. When Billy Crudup is tricked by David to be a host for a facehugger it means something because this character has had some establishment, there is more weight behind his death but then it is ruined by a CGI chest-burster opening its arms out for David. Of course I have to talk about the Ripley clone for this film, she is not as bad as I was expecting but the character of Daniels, played by Katherine Waterson, was just so bland and to be honest she had barely anything to do in the film until we needed to parallel the end of Alien. Alien: Covenant needed far less characters and needed to beef up the character of those that were important to the story.
The story of Alien: Covenant is unnecessary, most of the scenes and motivation in this film is unnecessary. Within the first ten minutes we are introduced to David speaking to Weyland with some philosophical dialogue that felt really out of place then cut to the ship Covenant where Walter is doing routine checks while the crew are in hyper-sleep and then an action scene happens out of nowhere which kills James Franco. I don't understand why there needed to be this scene, the scene is only there to kill Franco and to wake everyone up, it felt like padding and I feel the film would have benefited from a slower start. The rest of the basic plot is essentially the same as Alien, a strange signal from an unknown planet, the crew go to investigate. Where the film loses me is with the backstory of the Aliens themselves, Alien: Covenant just does not make sense. It feels like Ridley Scott was torn between two films he wanted to make, a return to the first Alien with an atmospheric horror film and the sequel to Prometheus and what we got was the result of trying to merge those two ideas. If we had to chose one I would have gone with the Prometheus sequel, because Ridley Scott does not need to make the Alien film, but if he had continued with the Prometheus story I feel as if we would have got a far more polished film. There is nothing else to really say without breaking each scene down and explaining why it does not work so I will spare you the in-depth analysis and just say that the plot and script is a mess.
Now the cinematography and film making itself I have massive issues with in this film. People often say how much of a "visual" director Ridley Scott is and I would agree but it depends on which Ridley Scott you are talking about, because anything pre Gladiator is visually stunning and engaging but after that he became more "gritty" especially with the use of higher shutter speeds. Alien Covenant is an ugly movie, its shot poorly and just has the wrong look and feel, with some scenes looking like they belong in 28 Days Later. The first Alien is a beautiful film, and from frame one you feel as if you are in this situation, the lighting was perfect everything felt dirty and real. Covenant everything is too bland and at points it feels as if it is trying to be Alien, hell even Alien Isolation looks better than this. No scene has tension and the action/horror scenes loose any impact due to the high shutter speeds and handheld nature of the camera. This film feels like an imitation of an Alien film rather than the big budget prequel. The CGI in this film is damn right insulting, even Prometheus has practical effects but this made all the versions of the Alien look fake and silly, It baffles me that the same man who allowed this made Alien and Blade Runner.
Lastly the soundtrack has to be addressed, why do we have to rely on the previous film to get brownie points. To say the score is a straight up copy of the original is an understatement, the exact same cues and stings are ripped straight from the original and to be honest it does not work. Other than that the rest of the score is just generic and dull. Nothing else to really say about it.
Overall I would not recommend watching Alien: Covenant, you are better of doing a double bill of Alien and Aliens. This film is a mess and not even an interesting mess, I would stay away from this film and wait for it to be on TV to check it out. Like Alien Resurrection this film should only be watched to see how wrong the film makers got it. Its a shame because this film had potential and could have been at least decent but instead what we have is a mess of a film.
5/10
Written By
Ashley Harvey
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